h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sometimes you get paranoid. But paranoid people *could* be right occasionally, don't you think?

Like that old joke about the stopped clock? It's right twice a day...

Well, anyway. I've just become convinced that the manufacturers of computers have figured out a way to tap into our mental processes and use our restlessness, laziness, and short attention spans to worm into our subconsciousnesses.

I think the little freebie computer games are changing the way we *think*.

Take the Freecell.

This form of online solitaire ostensibly provides something for your idle hands and eyes to do while waiting for an email reply or phone call. It's harmless, right? But notice...

The old XP version kept statistics. It was possible to check those statistics, but it wasn't necessary. Every once in a while, I'd absently note that I had a pretty respectable score; about 96% success rate.

Then came Vista, for a bit. Vista's Freecell games couldn't actually be lost. All you had to do was backtrack until you figured out where you'd gone wrong. No point in checking the statistics, either.

Obviously, this didn't suit the behavioural scientists behind the computer games. They weren't getting any results. So they changed it again.

Windows 8's Freecell has the statistics up front on the app. To start a new game, you have to look RIGHT AT the box with the statistics on them.

More insidiously, they've added a NEW statistic: time elapsed. Yes, you now know the fastest time you've ever clocked in solving a Freecell puzzle, so you have an added incentive to be fast and get back to work, presumably.

My record time is 1:43. I did that without realising. Oh, darn. I'll never match that. But that's not what's alarming.

Somewhere in my subconscious, my brain has *taught itself how to do this*. Align playing cards in order. Sort piles, faster and faster. Why???

To suit the demands of some invisible behavioural scientist, that's why. I have no idea what their evil scheme is. But I know they have one. Someday, it will become clear why they've programmed every computer user on the planet to sort cards. Until then, we live in a fool's paradise. We think we're playing.

Why don't I ignore the app? Because playing Angry Birds gives me an ache in my forearm muscles. Although those green pigs are so tempting...

Oh, and my success rate is 100%. I did manage to lose one at the beginning, but the statistical counter forgave that after the first 200 games. I guess it's too lazy to count the percentage any more...or else that's part of the psychological conditioning...

My stopped clock is only right once a day

But I'm not going to this thread over that

Once the are reading this you will have far bigger problems on your hands. You're not supposed to see through their schemes like this, you know

My stopped clock was never right after one of the hands fell off.




There, don't say I don't post profound things once in a while.

Let's see what the make of *that*.

Meanwhile. in a disused warehouse, full of empty cardboard boxes, sits an exquistly ordered set of playing cards...... For how long has it sat there..... waiting... and waiting.... until the time is right..... on the stopped watch..... when day becomes..... day... or night... Its almost certainly tied up in some inextricible way with the voices they put in our heads, from the mobile phone signals only our tin foil hats can protect us now

Thank heaven for the tinfoil hats.

Even if we have no smiley.

"they" stopped trying to brainwash me "they" couldn't find a suitable detergent

'They' couldn't find a brain to wash...

aw! that was going to be my next post

actually! mine is still in the shrink-wrap and I've not been able to work out how to get to ittherefore! untouched by human hands

My parents were cruel - If I didn't speak properly they would wash my mouth out with soup.

Hang on, that's not right.

My parents were gruel. Won ton gruelty, it was, from broth of them. I quickly learned my alphabet, for starters.

nice one Icy

When is the click guilty of a misdemeanor?

When the clock strikes one.

I offered my wife a cheese straw I'd made (illustrative link follows):

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop-img/1253907792344.jpg


Well, she wouldn't take one. Why? "Because it's twirly", she said.

"I thought you liked them like that... Hang on, here's a straighter one, how about this?"

"No", she says, "It's still twirly".


"This one's absolutely straight as a die - you could use it as a ruler! How about this one?"

"No," she says, "I told you it's twirly - It's only half past six."

I think the mind control is working...

Good one, Icy

My regards to the missus

Oops, forgot to mention I quoted you in the pun thread

Let's call it QOTD